Food Bank of South Jersey finishes children's weekend meal program

A Kidz Pack sits on a table as Veterans Memorial Family School kindergarten students play in during recess in Camden, Wednesday, June 18, 2014. Throughout the school year, the Food Bank of South Jersey delivers Kidz Packs, nutritionally-balanced meals to help sustain students and their families over the weekend. The Food Bank helps feed over 1,300 food-insecure children through the summer through its Summer Feeding Program. (Staff Photo by Lori M. Nichols/South Jersey Times)

CAMDEN — The Food Bank of South Jersey was at Veterans Memorial Family School on Wednesday morning to pack the last delivery of this year's Kidz Pack program, which for the past six years has provided food-insecure students with meals to help their families get through the weekend.

Many students rely on school lunches to make sure they get a meal every day. With a statewide reduction in SNAP benefits, food bank Direct Service Program Manager Falynn Milligan said the number of school children getting food assistance at school is on the rise.

"The percentage of students that receive free or reduced lunch is growing," she said. "Some of those schools two years ago were only 30 percent. Now it's 50 percent."

About 75 students at Veterans Memorial receive the weekend "backpacks," which are handed out each Friday. Another 100 students in Westville also take home the packages, as do 100 in Glassboro.

Even beyond the Kidz Pack program, the number of hungry kids in the region is startling: About 3,000 children around South Jersey get monthly rations of two weeks' worth of groceries from pantries at school. Because many children in the area are helping to take care of their siblings while their parents are at work, staples include boxed pasta and low-sodium canned goods to make it easier for adolescents to prepare a meal.

At the end of the school year, the food bank launches its Summer Feeding Program, when thousands of food-insecure kids in Camden, Gloucester and Salem counties will be able to get free lunch and dinner at various community spaces and public buildings.

"These are the working poor," Milligan said. "Their parents are working the 3 (p.m) to 11 (a.m.) shift, and a lot of the times parents go to work and rely on their middle school students to go home and feed the younger kids. We're noticing a big shift. Kids are sharing with their families, so we put in a big box of pasta so more people can eat."

All beverages are 100 percent juice, and the food bank purchases fresh produce with grant money to add to the backpacks — a rare luxury for some residents.

"Any extra that comes in helps us get through the month. The job I have doesn't provide me with that," said Yvette Gonzalez, mother of a recipient family who just had their food assistance reduced. "The fresh fruits are wonderful. There's only one place [you can get fresh produce in Camden], and if you don't have a car, you can't get there."

Milligan's mother, Nora Milligan, is a kindergarten teacher at Veterans Memorial. She takes turns retrieving the deliveries to help cut down on transportation costs.

"It makes me feel good," she said. "Because I'm from Camden, I feel like I'm giving back. The parents are just like me. People think they're all homeless in Camden, but they're working parents."